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“And Galana?” Garick asks quietly. “Does she know?”

“Not yet,” Caleb says. “I didn’t find out until after I left this morning. I’ll tell her when she gets home.”

I push the door open.

All three of them turn. Arina’s sitting on the edge of Papa’s desk with her arms folded. Garick is standing by the window, a little behind her, the way he always seems to stand near her lately. Caleb’s in front of the six security screens with a laptop open on his knees. Half the screens are black now. The other half show the gate, the driveway and the back garden in grainy gray.

“Gal,” Arina says. “We are having to update our security.”

Nobody says anything else.

“I’ve had a long day,” I say. “So I’m going to go upstairs and have a shower. And then, Caleb, I’d like to talk to you. Alone. If that’s okay with everyone.”

I don’t wait to hear if it’s okay with everyone. I turn around and walk out, and I make it all the way to the bathroom before my hands start to shake.

When I come down an hour later, the house is quieter.

The vans are gone. The stranger in the kitchen is gone, too, though the new brass lock gleams on the back door. Someone’s put the knife block back.

Arina’s gone to Garick’s. Milana’s watching TV in the den with Zhenya, both of them pretending not to listen for me. Evaria’s at Theo’s.

Caleb’s sitting at the kitchen table, alone.

He’s taken off his jacket. He’s in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and he’s got a mug of tea in front of him he’s clearly made himself, because he hasn’t put lemon in it. He stands when I come in.

“Arina’s marrying Garick,” I say, with my back to him. “I can feel it.” I turn around. “But I guess you knew already. Everyone knows everything before me. Every single time. Arina knew about the house. Garick knew. Probably Zhenya knew, she always knows. Kolya at the gate knew. And I came home and there was a stranger in my kitchen, and my things were all over the floor, and nobody thought to ask me, because nobody ever thinks to ask me.”

I’m breathing too hard. My eyes sting. I hate it, but I keep going, because if I stop now I’ll never say it.

“I’m not a child,” I say. “I’m not a piece of furniture you all move around the room. I’m the one who lives in this house. I’m the one who’s here every single day, Caleb. And if somebody’s sold my home to someone who wants to hurt us, I should have been the first person you told. Not the last.”

The radiator ticks.

Caleb doesn’t argue. He doesn’t tell me to calm down, or that it was for my own good, or any of the hundred things Papa would have said.

He just nods. “You’re right,” he says.

I stare at him. “What?”

“You’re right. I should have told you first.” He doesn’t look away. “I went to Arina because it’s her business now, and Garick because it’s his men at the gate. But this is your house, too. I’m sorry.”

All the fight goes out of me at once. I put my hand on the counter to steady myself.

“Okay,” I say.

“Will you sit? I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

I sit.

He does tell me. All of it. The new system Papa had put in last spring. The man called Riddings, and his installer called Brenner, who followed us from the bakery on Saturday. eleven minutes of darkness in May. A package of information about our house, the cameras, the guards and the blind spots, sold to someone in August for more than a hundred thousand dollars.

I listen without interrupting. When he’s finished, I look down at my tea and realize it’s gone cold.

“So whoever bought it,” I say slowly, “knows how to get in.”

“They know how to get in the way it was. I’m changing that.” He leans forward. “But I can’t do it without changing things you care about. So tell me how you want it done.”

I think about it.